There are talks going on between Visa, the American payments giant, and a British fraud detection company that Mike Lynch, the technology entrepreneur who passed away this week, supported, regarding a potential sale that could be worth hundreds of millions of pounds.
The company Featurespace, which was established in 2008 and has its headquarters in Cambridge, is currently engaged in advanced negotiations over a potential transaction.
wereThis weekend, there was a range of estimates on its possible value; nevertheless, one source stated that it may be worth more than 700 million pounds, while another insider stated that it could ultimately be worth less than that.
However, sources stressed that an agreement had not yet been legally agreed upon and that it was still possible for the deal to fall apart.
Mr. Lynch passed away aboard Bayesian, the superyacht he owned, together with his daughter Hannah and five other people, including Jonathan Bloomer, who had previously served as the chief executive officer of Prudential. The news of the potential transaction came just a few days after Mr. Lynch’s passing.
In the words of one investor, the sale to Featurespace would bring attention once more to the role that Mr. Lynch had played in providing financial support to prosperous British start-ups.
Mr. Lynch served as a non-executive director of Featurespace for eleven years, during which time his investment firm, Invoke Capital, owned a modest position in the company.
It is reported that it has decreased its interest in recent years in order to assist in funding the legal fight that ultimately resulted in his being exonerated of fraud regarding the $11 billion sale of Autonomy, the software business that he founded, to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
Featurespace described itself as “devastated by the loss of Mike Lynch” in an homage to Mr. Lynch that was posted on the website of the company this week.
Without Mike, there is a significant possibility that Featurespace would not be a successful technological firm. This has a high statistical probability.
Mike’s combination of intellectual sophistication and business savvy served as a source of motivation for our company’s co-founders, Professor Bill Fitzgerald and Dave Excell.
The friendship and direction that he provided were beneficial to them.
“Mike’s personal investment in Featurespace enabled the development of an idea that has proven to be crucial in the progression of AI [artificial intelligence], and he served as a non-executive director for nearly ten years, beginning in 2008 and continuing until 2019.
“Mike was a true champion of the UK technology sector, including the need for greater diversity, and advocated for many female leaders, including our CEO Martina King.”
Companies such as HSBC, NatWest Group, and Worldpay are among the clients of Featurespace, which specialises in the detection of fraudulent activity.
The company Betfair, which is owned by Flutter Entertainment, is one of the clients that comes from outside the banking sector.
Within the context of an expansion in financial frauds, which have become more complex over the course of the past few years and have cost banks billions of pounds to reimburse customers, there has been an increase in demand for their services.
The company develops software known as Adaptive Behavioural Analytics, which employs machine learning methodologies to identify and prevent fraudulent activity in over 180 countries.
The company Featurespace, which is managed by Martina King, a former executive at Yahoo! and Guardian Media Group, has successfully secured around one hundred million pounds from investors through a succession of investment rounds.
Among its other partners are Insight Venture Partners, IP Group, Chrysalis, Mission OG, and Highland Europe, all of whom are considered to be among the most notable early-stage investors in the world.
Additionally, Mr. Lynch was instrumental in the establishment of Darktrace, a cybersecurity company that recently reached an agreement with Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm, to acquire the company in a transaction valued at 4.25 billion pounds.
In the course of their investigation into the sinking of the Bayesian, Italian prosecutors announced this past weekend that they would be considering the possibility of filing manslaughter charges.
Invoke declined to comment, and Featurespace did not react to a request for comment. Visa stated that it did not comment on the speculation that was going on.